


Slip Under the Skin (Let's Try This Again)

by DreamingAmethystDragons



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Selkies, Werewolves, Witches, cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 18:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17229095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingAmethystDragons/pseuds/DreamingAmethystDragons
Summary: A werewolf, a witch, and a selkie walk into the bar.But isn't that the oldest joke in the book?





	Slip Under the Skin (Let's Try This Again)

A werewolf, a witch, and a selkie walk into the bar.

(No.  Try again.  That’s the oldest joke in the book.)  

Okay, okay.  Three hooded figures with scars on the backs of their hands and potions clinking at their belts walk into the bar.  Strange, that, because the last guy should have ducked. 

(You suck.  You’re not allowed to lead anymore.)  

(Fine.  You tell it, if you’re so great.)

(I am.  And I will.)

Traverse Town has always been an irregularity.  More so than the once-Hollow Bastion, more so than the ever-sleepy Twilight Town.  All kinds of travelers make their way to its borders, like sand dollars washed to the shore.  Children and monsters. Warlocks and mages. The in-between. The petty thieves. The washed-up court jesters.  

(The werewolf, the witch, the selkie.)

The oldest arrives first.  The werewolf. The tells are subtle, for the lycanthropy.  

(The tales are not.  Or is that tails?)

(Shut it.)

She looks human, like many other shapeshifters at a glance.  Red hair, blood hair, pulled back high on the head. A vest, once probably a ruddy pink but battered enough as to starting to be faded out.  Black leggings. Boots, steel-toed. Arms bare, save for the tattoo on the shoulder. It’s only the little things, as you get closer. The hint of teeth too sharp.  The shagginess of the blood-hair. Eyes a little too feral, nails a little too curved, too narrowed to a infinitesimal point. 

(Keep away from the eyes, keep moving.)

She walks into the bar with all the confidence she wouldn’t have had at age 14, but time and conflict makes wounds and warriors of them all.  Her head is bare, but she knows how to smile razor-thin, smile a bit too long, too large for the human jaw. She tosses some munny before the barkeep, who gives her a short squint before filling and handing over a glass, wordless.  The ale seems to honey-golden, too bright to the eyes, but she smiles and takes it and reclines in a corner. Only one person, probably a local, bags under his eyes, here too long, approaches. His voice is ragged underneath his propositioning.  A click of her nails and he’s staggering away, glossy-eyed.

(Mind-influence.  Takes balls to use.)

(We’ve seen how it goes bad.)

She’s watching the door.  

(She always did know how to blend in.)

She’s watching the door, so she sees when the witch walks in. 

He pauses a moment at the door.  Like the werewolf, he’s wearing a vest, navy blues and pale whites, but unlike her he’s pulled his hood up, low enough on his face to show only the bridge of his nose, sharp cheekbones, chapped lips.  At least, it would be an effective disguise, if not for the way the light glinted off his eyes, the kind of mossy light of water too clear, of an aurora too wild. 

(Like gemstones to tuck in your pocket.  Like sun on a rainy day.)

(Enough, you two.)

He slouches his way into the bar, the witch, in the way people move when they grew too tall too fast and never fully committed to walking fully upright.  His hands are shoved deep into his pockets (dark jeans, stone-silver boots) until they’re not and he’s tossing munny to the barkeep, all smooth, lazy motions.  The barkeep squints up into his face before turning to his task, pushing him a mug of ale that seems oddly pale and shimmery. It’s a good thing the barkeep looked up, and not down, because the tell for a witch is more than just the eyes - it’s all in the hands, fine-boned, and to look at them is to look at those puzzles that you have to cross your eyes to see the images.  Just that blurred with magic, densely layered. 

(Hands of ruin, hands of heat.)

He half-turns, sees the werewolf.  She lifts her mug in a toast, smirk threatening to overtake her face.  He doesn’t reach but to make his way to her - but when he’s slid across from her, he slides off his hood in a waterfall of pale hair and favors a small smile.  They clink mugs, and drink. 

(Still like the long hair better.)

(Short is convenient.)

(Like long hair doesn’t have its uses too.)

They sit together, silent, werewolf still watching the door, the witch idly tracing patterns into the woodwork.  This is how they are when the selkie finally arrives. 

(Always a little late, the slowpoke.)

(I’ll always be there when I’m needed.)

(Threat or promise?)

He steps through the door without hesitation, shaking raindrops off deep brown hair.  He’s wearing a vest, somewhat hidden and multilayered in dark, for overtop that he’s wearing a long cloak over-threaded in a hundred colors snowy, stormy, steel grey and winter sun.  He swings one side out of the way as he moves forward, rummaging in a side pocket, and when he reaches the barkeep the smile he favors is something sunny and warm. He gives his money directly to the barkeep, gets something rich in dark umbers.

(Always so friendly.  Slips right under their skin.)

That smile, though, is nothing compared to the one he gives his werewolf and witch.  The two raise their mugs and he gladly slips into the booth, nudging his shoulder into the witch as he clasps the werewolf’s hand.  

(And oh, the trouble that follows.)

A werewolf, a witch, and a selkie walk into the bar, and where they go, they won’t tell.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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